Main menu

Post navigation

Monday

Welcome to Monday, or what what’s standing in for Monday as I appear to have misplaced mine this week. I was travelling on the actual Monday assigned to me and since whatever forces determine what sort of trip you will have were obviously annoyed with me, that day was sort of a loss. A whole missed chunk. I had a wonderful Madrona, loved every single minute of it, like I always do, but came home thinking that I needed a good solid Monday. You know the kind. Clear off the desk, catch up on emails, tidy the house, pull together the laundry, wonder vaguely how Sam and Joe got on with no clean towels and why we now keep the measuring cups with the glasses.

This was totally my intention on Tuesday, when something came over me. I absolutely couldn’t get moving. I drank coffee and knit, then drank coffee and knit a little more, and then I sat at my desk, but all I could bring myself to do there was drink coffee and knit. I couldn’t seem to pull together a good Monday-esque sort of momentum. Then it hit me. Mondays are supposed to follow weekends, and I worked on the weekend. I refocused my goals then, and managed a pretty stellar day off.

Yesterday had a ton of momentum, but still had more of the feel of a productive Sunday. I wrote, touched in with friends, talked with my family, arranged a few important things… I did the people part. Today I’ve determined, needs to be a Monday. Today my desk and I don’t just need to spend time together, we need to be welded for at least 9 hours- and then we’ll be all caught up, or as caught up as possible, or at least the caught up place will be within sight. There’s also the teeny tiny problem of me (mostly) not being insane, which means that I know that today isn’t Monday, but Thursday and that means that I should probably do Monday and Tuesday today, and Wednesday and Thursday tomorrow, and then Friday and Saturday on Saturday which means Sunday can just be Sunday and then things will be back on track, but Thursday’s always been my favourite day of the week and I don’t want to wreck it too much. There’s also that Monday was Family Day here, a holiday for everyone, so maybe today should be Tuesday- but that means I’d have to find time to spin…. Forget it. The important thing is that today has to be awesome, and this has me burning with the fires of a thousand things that need to be done before Sunday (the real one) comes – and not the least of them are knitty.I finished my Kusha Kusha and felted it, and I think I love it. It’s hard to tell until I put on the outfit that I think it goes with and check to see if it makes me elegant and tall. I have my hopes high. It does indeed look post-apocolyptic, but today so does my hair, and the pictures will have to wait. While I was at Madrona I found the most perfect little buttons for Lou’s Birthday sweater – I’ll see the freshly minted one year old on the weekend, so I need to finish the button bands, if you understand that here I am using the word "finish" to mean "begin and finish". I was so worried about having enough handspun that now I have too much, so I did have delusions about a hat, but… Sam’s birthday (19!) was also last week, and there’s a little project I want to finish for her before we celebrate on the weekend too. I shouldn’t call it a little project. It will be a miracle if I can finish it by Sunday.

Thank goodness it’s only Monday or I’d be freaked. PS. I’ll be updating my events page tomorrow (after the aforementioned welding to my desk) but since this one’s really soon I thought I would put it here. I’ll be in Boston next weekend, doing some great stuff with the Metro West Knitters. There’s classes (I’m not sure if there’s room left, but I will check for you) and a lecture. I’ll be doing "This Is Your Brain On Knitting" on Friday evening, March 1, 7:30, at Hibernian Hall, 151 Watertown Street, Watertown (Rte 16 next to the Stop ‘n’ Shop, apparently.)

Cost is $20, payable at the door. After costs are covered, a donation will be made to MSF – a lovely move on the Guild’s part. They’d like to know if you’re coming, so please pre-register here. Bring your knitting. I promise to be as fun as I can.

74 thoughts on “Monday”

I’m coming! I’m so excited to finally see you! And Saturday is my birthday so it’s like a little present to me.
For some reason I thought it was in Salem Mass though. Whatever, Watertown is closer to work. 🙂

Monday on Thursday represent! At least that’s my plan with getting to spend my next 24 hours in my home. Bustling around with people is great but so wearying – some times it’s gotta be about short to-do-lists and holding your yarn!

I think that this is an excellent time to re-open the discussion of why it is that we really should go to the ten day week. It would give that whole Monday and Tuesday on a Thursday thing so much more time to even itself out.

Yay! We cannot wait to meet you here at the Metro West knitters guild! We have less than a handful of spaces available for workshops….anyone can email me 🙂 So excited! Oh, and did we mention? This is a great knitting guild…we picked a hall with a bar 😉

I so enjoy (trying) to keep up with your thought patterns, and by golly, they are making complete sense! Thanks for showing the felted scarf as I was having problems wrapping my brain around how it was going to look when done – a thing of beauty! Here’s to it being whatever day you want it to be!
NancyFP

I’m with Sandra, scratch this week and start again next week. Besides you have some very important projects to finish for some VIPs in your life before the week-end. The VIPs in your life are more important than work any day of the week. Work will be there when you get back to it, loved ones might not.

Wow – route 16. My husband and I have an old joke about when we first moved to Boston and were trying to find our way driving and how impossible it is and the punchline is always “it’s not as bad as winding up on route 16”. Makes me smile every time.
Also – with button bands on a baby sweater, starting them pretty much IS finishing them, so I think you’re all good there.
Can’t wait to see Kusha Kusha all modeled. If you feel good, you automatically look taller!

Any chance you could pod-cast your talks for those of us who cannot attend?
By the way, I’m with you on the button bands – ugh!The little baby sweater is so cute right up until then….
Ditto on Sam’s birthday project yarn comments – it looks so yummy.
Glan you’re home safe and sound.

I sense a problem with Monday-ising Thursday: have you let Natalie know that today is the day she should be coming to work for you? However with her help you will really whip some of the To Do List into order.

You are going to be in Boston March 1. I am going to be in Boston March 6-10. This would be tragic if our being there at the same time held the slightest chance of seeing one another. As it is, I’ll just try to pick up your aura…

Wow, curioser and curioser, steelwool yarn, and you felted it. Intriguing. I will have to Google this. Once you’ve knit it, can you make different shapes with it? Like, can you shape it to make it look like it’s being blown by wind to the side of your neck? Wild.

Good luck with all the projects, I am sure you will get everything done by Sunday that needs to get done 🙂
Oh, and Happy 19th Birthday to Sam! It’s a good month to turn 19… it was my 19th a few weeks ago 🙂
~Bekah

Please don’t make it Monday here, too. You may have YOUR Monday, but I NEED tomorrow to be Friday! (It’s been a REALLY long week…One of my students is dying…Very sad….NEED a weekend!)
But you may have your Monday today!

Please let this be Thursday. Thursday is Cast Offs Knitting Group, and I’m in need of my knitting peeps. Also, tomorrow we go to Stitches West, and there is no way I’m missing all those yarn fumes!
Happy Whatever Day It Is!

Actually, today is my Friday, since it is my last working day this week, not to confuse the issue any more than necessary. I, too, am having a problem with the concept of felting stainless steel, but I have faith in you!

It looks like you visited Jennie the Potter. I also found perfect buttons there, for my newest Blue Moon BFL sweater. And a mug, of course. You missed the one with the bicycle on it; I must have beaten you to it. Oh, and I pulled a Harlot and blocked my new sweater on the Hotel M in-room couch. Pins stick right into it and stretch the lace out perfectly!

This was my first Madrona. I took a “mini class” with the lovely Clara Parkes. As we applauded Clara when she finished, you came rushing in to give her a hello hug. That made my whole day!! Two of my favorite knitting-writer gurus in the same room! Right in front of me!

Aww,wish I could be there. My son actually commutes from Harvard Square to Watertown for work. Maybe I could send him as my substitute. After all,what else could a twenty something young man have to do on a Friday night?

I am so excited that you are coming to Boston! I just registered for the event!!! I never thought I’d get to hear you speak in person, how thrilling! It’s almost like getting to see Duran Duran when you’re 13 and oh so in love with Nick Rhodes, lol!

So… January 2007:
“The thing about Madrona, is that even though it is supremely organized, cheerfully run and as easy for the teachers/speakers to navigate as possible, something about it kicks my ass and leaves me for dead. […] Yesterday I tried to blog but the needs of my corporeal self and those of my family won out…as it should be. I put the whole day down, stayed in my jammies and did only what I had to. Feeling much better today.”
Listen to yourself from the past, and give yourself and your family what you need to recover. As many Mondays as it takes.

A post-apocalyptic outfit requires a post-apocalyptic hairdo. . .or at least an updated version of the Bride of Frankenstein’s. It may even help you look taller.
Can’t wait to see Lou model the sweater although I hope he likes it so much that he instinctively keeps it clean. I’m sure you remember the days of your girls using things like peas, grape jelly, chocolate anything, Cheetos, etc., to decorate their clothes!
Sam will love the whatever-it-is. And she will make sure you finish it. In record time. Or she might have to nag you to death. Or worse. (Did I just cause another attack of post-apocalyptic hair?)

SHUT!UP! You’re going to be in my town – no, literally, I live 1.5 mi from the Hibernian Hall – next weekend! And I didn’t know until now! And I already have plans for next Friday… Insert copious amounts of cursing and swearing and sobbing here. I am beside myself and now trying to decide if I can skip the dear friend’s fundraiser for the Marathon so I can come see you (all the while the little voice in my head is saying “she is running 26.2 miles for cancer research in 6 weeks and you want to skip supporting her for knitting?!?!? Have you gone off the deep end??” The rest of me is saying “but SPM is going to be 1.5 miles from home – we could WALK there if we had to! C’mon, you know you want to…”). Oh, I have a severe dilemma to hash over this weekend… In case I don’t make it to see you, I hope you enjoy your visit to Massachusetts and, especially, to Watertown. If you need a cozy place to stay, I have a lovely guest room that’s only 1.5 miles from the Hall – you could walk for goodness sake! (And no, I’m not kidding! If you need a home away from home for the weekend, let me know!)

Stephanie,
I want you to know how much I enjoyed your Mawata and Lever classes. I am the one who said that I took the class when Sock Camp was at Port Ludlow the first time. It has made a dramatic change in my knitting and I thank you for that. I now use it with things other than garter or socks. I just wanted to let you know and thank you for developing this class. It has made a world of difference for me.

I might be able to help explain the measuring cups with the glasses, if you can help me find my way to any even-close-to-logical explanation for why a plastic tray — the kind designed to hold a 13×9 cake or for use as a serving tray — would end up in the utensils drawer with the whisks, wooden spoons, etc. (I was disturbed by the mixing bowls in with the skillets — until I found the tray.)

Whoa Nellie: I got all excited, called a car load of ladies to do a road trip. This is your brain on knitting is the speech i have wanted to hear like for freakin ever. I had to put the brakes on when I finally clued in to the fact it is Watertown MA not Watertown NY which is just an hour south of me here in Kingston.
Please do this talk close to Kingston. Any Toronto dates for it? That could be a girls mini get away and doable for me.
Have fun all. Pout, pout pout.

So many people ask. Permit me.Kusha Kusha is made with two yarns. The first is 70% silk and 30% stainless steel. The other is 100% merino. True, neither silk nor steel felt ( or rust, for that matter-“stainless” steel is also known as “rustless steel”) but merino DOES (felt, sorry, it won’t rust either!) and since that single filament of steel is wrapped in silk, it shouldn’t itch either.

steph, are you going to any knit nights when you’re in the city? i’ve been keeping a sporadic eye on your blog since meghan moved, just to see where people are going these days. not that i’m in the city on weeknights until the summer anyway, but just because i’m curious. 🙂

Finally having time to catch up on this week’s blogs. February is a great birthday month – younger daughter’s was also last week and older one is this coming week.
So excited, but then sad to read about MetroWest Knitting guild appearance – very close, but by now there are no spaces 🙁 Another time!! Just made my heart skip a beat thinking I could see you again, but then my s-i-l is flying on from Wisconsin on Friday, so hubby might not have appreciated me disappearing to a knitting event on her first hight here.
Can’t wait to see finished projects for Lou and Sam (how did Sam get to be 19 already!! And Lou one!!!)